Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Book Arts Collaborative Project

So I've had to take a break from Tuesday posts because I'm swamped with preparing massive amounts of books for a Festival this weekend. BUT, I thought I'd take a break and give everyone a glimpse at the Collaborative Book Arts Project that members of BEST have been working on.

There are about 20 participants and each participant was asked to create a page for a book based on the book's theme. There are four books that will be bound and sent to a gallery for display and purchase. The theme of each book is a poem written by one of the members of BEST. Each group has 5 or 6 people in it and each person made a page for every member of the group as well as an extra for the gallery piece.

I'll be showing the pages of the books throughout the next month so you can see all the amazing creativeness that BEST members put out!

Today I'll spotlight 3 pages that were based on this poem:

Husbandry

by Jennifer Borges Foster

For you she builds a house of spices and sleigh beds,of anise and armrests, of typewriters happily clackingtheir teeth at the blowsy dawn. She builds boxes and ladders,kneelers and coffins, stocks hardtack and swatches of cloth.There is a history of horses and husbandry here,a history of holiness and excess, of morning and mourning,of days that never wake. For you she builds a body, a listfrom hip to waist, a weight in breasts best set to anchorthe architecture of your mouth. On leaving shelives in a biscuit, peeking through the gnawed-out windowsat the robins who dumbly clutter her roof.She is vaulted and volleyed by the long-armed godof her father; holed up and hoping you’ll come robthe stockpile she’s been hoarding for years. Her letters toyou are written in steam, apparent only on nightswhen the windows drift open. For you she builds a houseof hallways, one easy to wander when she is gone.

"Each signature is slightly different -scraps of fabric were sewn on to cotton paper, then I cut out a bird shape on the cover. Each bird has handwritten pages from an old (1898) botany book or fragments from an equally old map. Inside the signature there is a hand-printed erasure of my original poem Husbandry."

Welcome

Here we explore book arts through our bookbinding 101 series and tutorials, and occasionally share other odds and ends. We are Daniel and Karleigh and we make books and other things while living in rural America with our two young sons.

Upcoming Workshops

We are done teaching for the 2013 year and are currently setting up workshops for 2014! If you'd like us to come teach in your area, please send an email to KarleighJae@gmail.com